nnatal

2005 Natality

In 2003, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson approved the revision to the US Standard Certificate of Live Birth and encouraged all states to adopt it. The process involved in this revision, as well as details of what was revised, can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/vital_certs_rev.htm.

Texas adopted the new US Standard Certificate of Live Birth in 2005. This revision includes changes to items such as onset of prenatal care, maternal smoking history, race/ethnicity etc. Some of these changes will be highlighted in this narrative. For details regarding race/ethnicity computation for birth data, see Table 44.

Births and Birth Rates

There were 385,537 live births to Texas residents in 2005, an increase of 1.1 percent (4,096 more births) from 2004, and an increase of 16.7 percent (55,299 more births) from 1996.

From 1995 through 2005, the proportion of births to white* mothers decreased every year, from 45.6 percent of all births in 1995 to 39.4 percent in 2005. At the same time, the proportion of births to Hispanic mothers increased from 42.4 percent of births in 1995 to 49.7 percent in 2005. The number of Hispanic births has exceeded the number of white births since 1998. The proportion of births to black mothers decreased from 12.0 percent in 1995 to 11.0 percent in 2005.

* Includes women of other and unknown race/ethnicity.

The 2005 crude birth rate of 16.9 births per 1,000 Texas residents is lowest rate on record. The crude birth rate has decreased by 0.1 births per 1,000 residents from 2004. The rate for whites* dropped from 13.1 in 1995, to 12.5 in 2005. The crude birth rate for blacks declined from 18.0 in 1995 to 16.3 in 2005. The Hispanic rate went from 26.0 to 23.5.

The general fertility rate for Texas, which is the number of live births to Texas residents per 1,000 women ages 15 through 44, was 76.7 in 2005. In 1995, it was 73.8 (Figure B). Like crude birth rates, race/ethnicity-specific general fertility rates have been highest among Hispanics, and lowest among whites* over the past ten years. In 1995, the general fertility rates of whites*, black, and Hispanics were 57.8, 70.3, and 107.5, respectively. In 2005, white* females' fertility rate increased to 61.7 while black and Hispanic females have decreased to 67.9 and 98.5.

More than half (54.8 percent) of Texas resident live births in 2005 were to mothers 20 to 29 years of age, and three-fourths (75.2 percent) were to mothers 20 to 34 years old (Table A). Mothers aged 10-17 accounted for 4.9 percent of the births in 2005, compared to 5.0 percent in 2004. The percentage of mothers aged 18 and 19 held dropped from 8.7 to 8.6 percent. In the same time frame, the percentage of births to mothers aged 30-34 decreased from 20.6 to 20.4 percent and the percentage of births to mothers aged 35-39 years increased from 8.9 to 9.4 percent.

Table A.1. Percent distribution of live births by mother's age and race/ethnicity; Texas residents, 2005. Percent of Live Births**

Age

White*

Black

Hispanic

All Races

10-14

0.1

0.5

0.3

0.2

15-19

8.2

16.8

16.5

13.3

20-24

23.4

34.1

30.3

28.0

25-29

28.6

24.1

25.9

26.8

30-34

25.1

15.5

17.7

20.4

35-39

12.1

7.2

7.6

9.4

40+

2.5

1.8

1.6

2.0

* Includes women of other and unknown race/ethnicity.

** Denominator for percent excludes missing data.

Note: due to rounding, percents may not sum to 100%

Table A.2. Percent distribution of live births by mother's age and race/ethnicity; Texas residents, 2005. Percent of Live Births for Selected Age Groups

Age

White*

Black

Hispanic

All Races

10-17

2.3

6.2

6.7

4.9

18-19

6.0

11.1

10.1

8.6

20-29

52.0

58.2

56.3

54.8

20-34

77.1

73.7

74.0

75.2

35+

14.7

9.0

9.2

11.3

* Includes women of other and unknown race/ethnicity.

Note: due to rounding, percents may not sum to 100%

Mothers' ages ranged from 11 to 55 years; the mean mother's age was 26.5 years. Among birth certificates that included information on the father's age (85.2 percent of all birth certificates), fathers ranged in age from 13 to 85. The mean father's age was 29.6 years.

Age-specific birth rates, calculated as the number of live births per 1,000 women in the specified age group, were highest among women aged 20-24, followed by women aged 25-29 for all races combined (Table B). Hispanic women aged 20-24, followed by Hispanic women aged 25-29 and black women aged 20-24 had the highest age-specific birth rates for individual race/ethnicities. White women were the only race/ethnicity whose highest age-specific birth rate occurred in the 25-29 age group. Age-specific birth rates for Hispanics were higher than rates for whites or blacks at every age group except 10-14 years. Whites in the youngest three age groups had the lowest fertility; blacks had the lowest fertility in the remaining age groups.

Table B. Race/ethnicity and age-specific rates1 (live births per 1,000 women in the race/ethnicity and age group); Texas residents, 2005

Age

White*

Black

Hispanic

All Races

10-14

0.3

1.8

1.7

1.1

15-19

31.2

62.7

92.0

59.9

20-24

91.4

136.2

168.7

128.8

25-29

117.2

105.7

143.0

126.8

30-34

95.4

66.7

98.7

93.4

35-39

43.8

30.3

48.8

44.0

40-44

7.5

6.6

10.8

8.4

All ages^

61.7

67.9

98.5

76.7

* Includes women of other and unknown race/ethnicity.

^ The general fertility rate. Numerator includes mothers of unknown ages; denominator is women 15-44 years of age.

1. Rates were calculated using population data from the Texas State Data Center. Births of unknown race/ethnicity, and of racial/ethnic groups other than white, black or Hispanic were included with white for the purposes of calculating birth and fertility rates.

Marital Status

Overall, 62.2 percent of mothers reported being married. However, there were large differences in marriage rates across age groups and race/ethnicities (Table C). In general, white mothers were most likely to be married and black mothers least likely to be married. Very few mothers aged 14 and younger were married, although very young Hispanic mothers were most likely to be married and very young black mothers were least likely to be married. The likelihood of being married generally increased with the mother's age for all race/ethnicities, although marriage rates for all mothers dropped slightly at age 40 and up.

Beginning with 2001 data, Vital Statistics annual reports do not include tables or data based on the Kessner Index. (These data may still be obtained by request.) Please see the sources at the end of this chapter for more information regarding strengths and weaknesses of various prenatal care utilization indexes1, 2.

This annual report still includes data on the month in which prenatal care began because it is one of the indicators suggested by the CDC's Healthy People 2010 initiative3. However, due to implementation of a new birth certificate for 2005 data, onset of prenatal care within the first trimester is not directly comparable to previous years (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/TechApp04.pdf).

The Kessner index data in Table 13 has been replaced with data on the mother's marital and educational status.

Overall, 6.1 percent of mothers reported using tobacco during their pregnancy. Of mothers who reported using tobacco during their pregnancy, 11.8 percent delivered low birth weight infants, compared to 8.1 percent of births to non-smokers.

Due to implementation of a new birth certificate in 2005, maternal tobacco use during pregnancy may not be directly comparable to previous years. Also, the information on maternal alcohol use during pregnancy is no longer being collected on the birth certificate.

Place of Delivery and Birth Attendant

Nearly all Texans who gave birth in 2005 did so in a hospital (99.3 percent). A small number occurred in licensed birthing centers (0.4 percent) or at home (0.4 percent), or other locations (negligible).

Physicians delivered 96.1 percent of infants born to Texas residents. Certified nurse-midwives attended 2.7 percent of all births and lay midwives attended 0.3 percent. The remainder, about 0.8 percent, were delivered by other types of attendants, such as EMS workers, taxi drivers, or relatives.

Low Birth Weight and Very Low Birth Weight

There were 32,006 low birth weight (<2,500 grams) infants born to Texas residents in 2005, which is 8.3 percent of live births (Table E). The rate was 8.0 percent in 2004 and 7.9 percent in 2003. Since 1995, low birth weight infants have increased from 7.1 percent to 8.3 percent of live births.

The risk of giving birth to a low birth weight infant remains much higher for black mothers (14.1 percent) than for Hispanic mothers (7.5 percent) or white mothers (7.7 percent). The incidence of low birth weight infants is higher among the youngest and oldest mothers. In 2005, 10.5 percent of births to mothers ages 14 and younger and 12.1 percent of births to mothers ages 40 and older were low birth weight.

A total of 5,641 births (1.4 percent of live births) were very low birth weight (<1,500 grams). This rate is slightly higher than the rate since 2001 (i.e. 1.3 percent). As with low birth weight, the risk of having a very low birth weight infant was highest for black mothers, and for the youngest and oldest mothers. The percentage of births to women 40 and over is up from 2001, when 1.7 percent of the women in that age group gave birth to very low birth weight infants.

In 2005, male infants accounted for 51.2 percent of all births (197,491) and female infants accounted for 48.8 percent (188,046). The majority of all births were either first children (38.4 percent) or second children (31.3 percent). Third children accounted for 18.4 percent of all births, fourth children 7.5 percent, and fifth children 2.6 percent.

There were 374,010 singleton births, accounting for 97.0 percent of all births. Twin births accounted for 2.8 percent of all births. Triplets and quadruplets occurred in less than 0.2 percent of all births.

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